Constellations
by pagerunner
Summary: Coming to a place like Night Vale can rearrange everything for you - even what you call the stars in the sky. But maybe the change is for the best. Carlos/Cecil, no particular spoilers.


The stars here are the same, reassuring in their permanence, but every constellation in the sky is different.

There's the Great Dark Hound and the Three-Eared Rabbit and the Creature of Which We Do Not Speak, and The Eye of the Forgotten God, and not too far from that, something that ought to be the Pleiades but which is known here as The Seven Specters. The list goes on and on, and Carlos is still trying to learn it all. Tonight he's doing it with the help of an old, battered guidebook, one that Cecil says he kept from his Boy Scout days.

"I had to learn all these for my Celestial Navigation badge," he says, running one long finger down the list. He points at another diagram before handing it back to Carlos: the shapes of the Greater and Lesser Pincers. "Besides, we all had to learn the proper chants to keep the major constellations dormant. That was a terribly important scouting task."

"Dormant? What do you mean?"

Cecil shudders. "In 1979, the troop got temporally displaced and missed the ritual. Twenty houses burned. You can still see one crater at the end of Stone Street." Off Carlos' look of alarm, he flaps one hand absently and adds, "Don't worry - it doesn't need to be done until the equinoxes. Look out for any stray meteors, though."

Carlos wonders helplessly about the mechanics of all this, but eventually he lets it go. After all, it's a beautiful night, and they're well-stocked for a night out to enjoy it: sleeping bags, food, a whole array of camping supplies that Carlos entrusted Cecil with compiling. So he leans against Cecil shoulder to shoulder, enjoying Cecil's pleased hum at the closeness while he returns to the book in his hands. There's some faint, penciled notes in the margins, difficult to read even by the little LED on his keyring, but it looks like Cecil's handwriting.

"_Winter's brightest star / Lives in this constellation…" _Carlos slowly puzzles out, before he realizes everything in the marginalia is written in 5/7/5. "Cecil, did you write these during Poetry Week?"

Cecil laughs. It's low and almost sheepish. "Yes. I had to turn in the entire guide for evaluation. Fortunately I got it back."

Carlos chuckles, too, and keeps reading. From the scribbled haiku, he picks out some interesting facts - like why the City Council had banned any mention of the Hourglass for nine years, and did their best to make the stars disappear entirely. Carlos shakes his head at the hubris. Then he wonders what they'd done to try to pull that off, and if it was possible at least to block _perception, _or…

Cecil nudges him, interrupting the thought. He's offering a mug of coffee and a faint smile. "My hands were getting cold," Cecil says.

"Ah. Good idea."

He takes the mug with a mod of thanks, after which Cecil returns to the thermos and pours another. He cradles it in his grip for a while. Carlos gives him time for that and for one good, bracing gulp before he reaches over to take one of Cecil's hands in his. Cecil startles, but when he turns back to Carlos, his eyes are bright.

"Does that help, too?" Carlos asks, quietly daring.

"Yes." Cecil's voice goes low and a little rough, and Carlos can feel it reverberating in his own chest. "Yes, that's…that's nice."

It is. Carlos takes a moment to enjoy it, then squeezes Cecil's fingers and looks up. "I meant to ask," he says, before he can become any more distracted. "Which one is your favorite?"

"Hmm?"

Carlos inclines his chin to point. "Favorite constellation."

Cecil takes a second to readjust, but he still doesn't take long to decide. "The eye, I think," he murmurs. "The idea that someone's watching over us."

"The eye of a long-forgotten god? Some people might find that…unnerving."

"I like to think it means us well."

Carlos smiles crookedly. Considering Cecil was just telling him about the sky vindictively hurling meteorites at the entire town, that's an impressive interpretation of the evidence. "You really are an optimist, aren't you?"

Cecil shrugs, but he smiles, too. There's something so heart-twisting about the expression that Carlos leans in and kisses Cecil's cheek, softly, just beside the ear. Cecil blushes.

"Did I ever tell you how I first heard about Night Vale?" Carlos asks, while he's still close.

Cecil shakes his head. He's visibly holding his breath. Carlos settles back - but not too far away - and looks again into the night sky.

"I used to play with the radio when I was a kid. Did you ever experiment with it at night? Where if the conditions are right and you find the right spots between stations, you can pick up faraway signals…?"

"Yes," Cecil murmurs. "The stations I found were always so strange."

Suspecting that Cecil's talking about entirely mundane broadcasts, Carlos hides a smile and reaches for his coffee again. But he doesn't let go of Cecil's hand, either.

"One night I found a program I couldn'texplain. It sounded like insects on a loop. It went on for hours. The next night it was windchimes broken up by car horns. I kept trying to track down what it _was, _and where it was even coming from. Finally I managed to hear a segment of one of Leonard Burton's broadcasts…"

Cecil's eyes widen. "It was that long ago?"

Carlos takes another sip, sets the mug aside and nods. "I didn't catch his name, but it must have been him. I always remembered it. When I finally heard the name of the town, I knew I'd have to track it down."

"When was that, then? Which program did you hear?"

Carlos tries to think of how to describe it. Eventually he comes at it sideways. "It was such a beautiful night. And it shouldn't even have worked, as far out of range as I was…but I suppose I felt nostalgic. I wanted to try." He gazes at the patterns overhead. "I'm pretty sure that it was the same stars that night…the Eye and all. And that was the first time I heard you."

Cecil goes silent with surprise. Carlos can still hear him, though, in a perfect memory of that rich, unmistakable voice on the airwaves. He shuts his eyes. It was just a few words, but it had been enough…

_And then I dug up the details. All the inexplicable stories - all the horrible and amazing and wonderful things about this place. I applied for grants and I assembled a team and I told everyone it was a scientific study, which wasn't even a lie. But it was you, too. It was thanks to hearing you. _

The thought soon trails off, because Cecil's just released his hand. He's about to ask why, or if he'd actually said those last few things out loud - he does that sometimes when musing over important thoughts - but then he feels Cecil cradling his face instead. The meaning is abruptly, wonderfully clear. Carlos holds his breath, and then Cecil kisses him, softly, thoroughly, taking his time. Carlos sighs and lets the warmth flood through him.

By the time Cecil draws back, they're both flushed. The book of constellations has fallen aside, almost forgotten. Still, Cecil asks after one more thing.

"What about your favorite stars?" Cecil says, a little breathlessly. Behind him, there's the flicker of something burning through the atmosphere - eldritch or mundane, harmful or benign, Carlos has no idea. "What are yours?"

It's hard to collect his thoughts. He has a few ideas - old favorite constellations, new ones he's intrigued by - but he gives up most of them as unimportant. Instead, he pulls Cecil closer. "Maybe you can help me choose?"

Cecil settles into place in Carlos' lap, shifts his hips and smiles. Something in the mood quickly changes. Soon enough he leans in to whisper a suggestion that has nothing to do with the stars at all, and Carlos can't help but laugh.

"Well," he says roughly. "Yeah. You can help with that, too, if you want."

"Oh, I think I do."

"And we're not going to…I don't know, disturb the sky, or…?"

Cecil's voice goes sly. "I wouldn't worry. Ritual chants and shouting can sound so _very _much alike."

Carlos bursts out laughing all over again, and lets his head fall back as Cecil sets to work. It means he's staring up at the sky when one more bright flash streaks through a constellation. For a moment, it looks like that all-watching eye has just winked.

_Maybe, _Carlos thinks with amusement and pleasure both,_ Cecil really was right about you._

And he holds on a little tighter, knowing he's picked his favorite thing here after all.


End file.
